Scars and Late Night Talks
by Andromeda Prime
Summary: In the aftermath of battle, Striker and Gipsy have a talk. Set in an AU where the Jaegers are sentient. Read the Author's Note at the start. COMPLETE.


**Umm…I don't have words for this, except that I ship the hell out of Striker/Gipsy. I know they're not sentient at all…then again, I'm a fan of giant robots. This is to be expected of me.**

**Warning: **in my headcanon, **Gipsy** is referred as **female** while **Cherno, Crimson**, and **Striker** are **male**.

**Suspend ALL logic from here on out.**

.-.-.

Whenever the kaiju fell, that was supposed to signal the end of conflict, the end of battle. They would earn a short reprieve before the humans would deploy them to again defend their tiny helpless cities and citizens. They would fight. They would rip the kaiju in half, to bits, sustaining scratches and gashes and dents the whole time through.

But whenever they returned from a conflict, he would look at her and begin an internal war for selfish reasons.

The scars marring her perfect armor and frame made her into a goddess. She looked so majestic and wondrous.

But with the same thought he'd rage at the kaiju again. How _dare _they defile her beauty with their ugly claws? How _dare _they almost rip her to shreds?

It wasn't a secret, at least among all the other Jaegers and half the humans, that he'd had eyes for Gipsy for the longest time. Not too long, but since all the Jaegers had been put into the Shatterdome, together.

He always thought she was beautiful. She was statuesque, carried herself with such dignity and grace that put all the other Jaegerkind (especially Cherno, the poor clunky old guy) to shame. Even the human pilots she served would voice their thoughts out loud and say that she was beautiful. He would have to hold back a grin when Raleigh, her pilot, called her gorgeous. How Gipsy could hold back smiling and making her emotion known was beyond him.

He wouldn't forget how quickly she put him in his place. He'd been busy bragging about his kaiju kill count, ten, to Crimson and Cherno when she gracefully strode by and replied in her chipper, melodious voice, "How'd you kill them all, dick-slinging contest? Did they die of laughter when he saw the size of yours?"

Since then he'd never bragged like that. At least not around her.

Their pilots had dispersed, retired to sleep for the night after this battle. They deserved it. Most of the humans had all gone to bed, leaving only a handful to watch over them and make sure they didn't do anything funny.

It had been quite expensive to fix Crimson when Cherno had snuck around without any supervision and sprayed a strange sort of nearly-permanent paint on him, making Crimson Typhoon a shade of rose pink. His triplet pilots, along with three-quarters of the humans at the Shatterdome, wet themselves that morning upon seeing him.

Gipsy had sustained many gashes in battle, but they would be tended to in the morning. For now she was held up in her place. To the untrained eye it would seem she was powered down. He'd seen enough to know that she put her arms completely down, straight one-eighty degrees, when she was powered down.

Her arms were at one-sixty-five, and her hands twitched against some imagined foe.

"Hey Gip," Striker called in as quiet a voice as he could use. The humans startled a bit, looked up, then realized it was nothing to worry about. Gipsy's yellow visor powered on to fifteen percent luminosity and she turned her head towards him.

"Come to bother me again?"

"You know you love it," Striker couldn't keep the smug out of his tone of voice. Gipsy rolled her arms back and opened and closed her hands. Before, she used to be a bit hostile towards him. The energy coming off her form now was definitely more welcoming and optimistic.

"What I'd really love is for these scars to get patched up," she gestured to the flurry of gashes along her chassis. Most of them ran from her upper right shoulder joint down to her lower left chest. The kaiju had dragged his claws all over her chassis, managing to drag them over her turbine as well. "Raleigh nearly had a fit when he saw them."

"You were in battle, it's to be expected."

Gipsy scoffed and ran a finger along a gash, making her shudder. "Tell him that."

"Would if Chuck and Raleigh wouldn't end up fighting 'bout it later."

"Oh. Right."

The bay fell quiet for a time as the humans strolled around, murmuring amongst each other, and Cherno and Crimson went into power-down mode. All the better. Before now, both of them used to try and stay up as long as possible to eavesdrop on him and Gipsy.

Striker's hands twitched toward Gipsy's as he said, "Those are some real bad gashes, Gip."

Gipsy looked him in his visor. "Really? You're going down the small-talk route?"

"Well…I mean, those are real bad gashes, Gip. Just pointin' that out."

"Thanks, Captain Obvious."

"What?"

"Nothing," Gipsy waved a dismissive servo. "Human thing. It'll take a while to explain."

"I got a while." Striker sat on the floor after making sure there weren't any humans in the immediate vicinity and looked up at her hopefully. Gipsy stared down at him for a moment before sitting with him.

"Well the short version is that whenever a human points out something very obvious on the internet, others will form a mob around them and refer to them as a Captain Obvious."

"Not sure I get it."

"Believe me, I don't either. I only heard of it when Raleigh told Dr. Newton "Thanks a bunch, Captain Obvious," Gipsy leaned forward and lay her head on his shoulder. Striker could feel the smugness coming off her frame. He shuttered his eyes behind the visor and then reopened them. The sounds of their systems still working and keeping them online filled the bay.

He looked down again at the scars covering her body. Criss-crossing each other, some parallel. All an affront to her. He raised a hand to one particularly deep and long one that ran right down the middle of her chest, and traced it with a finger. Gipsy shuddered as he neared her turbine.

"Each time those damned kaiju get their ugly claws on you," he murmured, visor dimming, "I want to take them and rip them to shreds 'til not even the tiniest fish in the Pacific can find them."

Gipsy scoffed and shifted so she sat closer to Striker, their chests nearly meeting. "We end up killing them. Isn't that enough to satisfy your kaiju blood lust?"

"More than enough." He circled his finger around the rim of her turbine and felt pleased with himself when she shuddered again. Turbine was her hotspot. He'd accidentally discovered such when he accidentally (really, it was an accident) fell on her and had to grip the center of her chest for support. The humans couldn't tell, but all the Jaegerkind gathered around could tell when she reached halfway to neural overload. "But it's all 'cause they put their claws on you. Scrape you up, make the gashes my fingers are runnin' over right now," he moved his fingers away and put them on another scar that ran across her upper chest. "Defilin' your external beauty."

Gipsy reached out and grabbed his hand, holding it in her own as she replied, "No reason to get mad. At least they don't completely kill me."

Oh, no, no, no. That would not be acceptable. She'd told him about Yancy and Raleigh and the Alaskan kaiju. He'd had scary thoughts of her not being there with him. Striker wound his arms around her, pulling her close to him. "No. I've still got you."

"And if things go right," Gipsy said in a slightly mischievous tone, "you'll have to put up with me for a long while." She said nothing more and lay her head on his chassis, lowering the luminosity of her visor until it was at zero percent.

He placed a hand over her head as she nuzzled into his chest, sighing as she powered down in his arms. Her turbine gave a low, contented hum as he ran his other hand along her back before he joined her in power-down mode.

She would always be perfect to him.

No matter what.

.-.-.

"Raleigh?" Mako waved her hand over her co-pilot's face, holding back a smile. "Raleigh, are you okay?"

Raleigh stayed staring through the window to the bay with wide eyes. He then brought his hands to his face and rubbed his eyes over and over again at the sight before him and many others. His Jaeger, his Gipsy Danger, cradled in the arms of Chuck's Striker Eureka.

"CHUCK," he roared, turning around and running for the mess hall where breakfast was being served. Everyone looked at him with bewildered expressions as he shouted, "I AM GOING TO KILL YOU AND THEN I AM GOING TO KILL YOUR JAEGER!"

Behind him, Mako stifled a laugh.


End file.
